


with the sun in my eyes

by hungerpunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 22:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1704968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungerpunch/pseuds/hungerpunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall is the enthusiastic Vice President of a GSA and Zayn is just trying to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with the sun in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> commissioned by the wonderful [caitlin](http://inexorablyacademic.tumblr.com), who just wanted something as wonderful and simple as california ziall. so here is a little american uni au for you ♥
> 
> loads of love to [lindsay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/icecreamsocialist/) for the beta and [shannon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendrums/) for the brit-pick! you guys rule :)

This is how Zayn and Harry end up at university together:

"So who's giving you the most money?" Harry asks from where he's sprawled out on Zayn's bed, head dangling upside down off the mattress. 

Zayn rifles through the packages of acceptance letters. "In America? CSULB."

"No idea what that stands for," Harry says.

"It's in California." Zayn chews his lip. "I know I talked about it all the time but now that it's a possibility...s'quite scary."

Harry heaves himself upright, cheeks pink from blood rush. "What if I go with you?" he asks.

Zayn feels his eyebrow take a mile hike up his forehead involuntarily. "To America?"

"Why not?"

"Harold," Zayn says flatly, shaking a pamphlet at him. "You can't just come to university to keep me company. You haven't even applied."

Harry shrugs, pulling his iPhone out and tapping away. "Look, rolling admissions," he says a minute later, showing Zayn the screen. "I've still got time." He snatches the phone away and taps around another moment. "Oh, perfect! They've got a sociology degree." 

Zayn groans. "'Cause your parents are gonna be so into this idea."

"We've got family in L.A.," Harry says, shoving his phone back into his impossibly tight pocket. "And listen," he mutters, waving his hand, "it's not like they can't afford it."

"Don't you have your own dreams?" Zayn asks, skimming over the subject of the Styles' affluence. 

"I mean, I had ideas," Harry says, "but I hadn't figured anything out. And I'm not eager to, like, settle down. And I love America!" He beams at Zayn brightly.

Zayn can't believe him, treating university like it's some sort of holiday. Harry will finish his A levels soon and Zayn knows he can probably get in anywhere he wants, whereas Zayn had to take a gap year to save money and get volunteer hours to bulk his application up. Still, the idea of a familiar face across the pond with him...

"Couldn't hurt to try, I s'pose," Zayn says, and five months later he's shoving open a CSULB dorm room door with one hand and trying to hold Harry, who hadn't slept a wink on the flight, up with the other.

"M'gonna die," Harry says as Zayn leads him to collapse on one of the two beds provided. 

"Welcome to America," Zayn says. 

 

This is how Zayn meets Niall:

“It’s called Weeks of _Welcome_ , Zayn!” Harry insists, throwing his arms out. “Let’s go be welcomed!”

Zayn groans into his pillow. “This was all a mistake.” It’s only day two Stateside and he can already feeling the terrifying homesickness lurching around in his gut, weighing his bones down like sediment. 

Zayn feels his mattress dip as Harry sits on his bed. “I’ll make tea just how you like, m’kay? Then you _have_ to come out with me.”

Zayn wakes up over one, two, two-and-a-half spot-on cups of tea as he looks around their dorm. Harry had spent most of the first day unpacking and decorating in a whirl while Zayn had slept, and now he sees photos of them together tacked all over the walls. Zayn smiles quietly and resolves to go along with whatever Harry has planned for the day. 

That resolve seeps out of him a bit when he spots the banner at the first event Harry drags them to: _Weeks of Welcome: Gay-Straight Alliance!_ in rainbow colors. “Harry, wait,” he falters, dropping his pace.

Harry stops, turning to frown at him. “Hm?”

“Gay-Straight Alliance?”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says. “First stop of the day.” 

“I think I’ll pass.”

“Please,” Harry rolls his eyes, snagging Zayn’s wrist. “I know what you did last summer.”

Zayn almost chokes, face flushing. “That’s not,” he protests, “—that’s not what I mean. I just mean, like. I don’t…” He scratches his arm uncomfortably. “I don’t necessarily wanna, like, sit around talking about my sexuality. And stuff. That’s like, private.”

“Oh, Zayn,” Harry sighs, beginning to forcibly drag Zayn along. “That’s not what it will be like.”

“How would you even know?” Zayn asks, brow furrowing. To his knowledge, their school didn’t have many clubs, let alone a LGBTQ one.

“ _Glee_.”

“I feel like you just, like, cancelled yourself out as any sort of authority,” Zayn says.

Harry huffs, “Whatever.” And that’s the last that’s said of that before Harry uses his latent muscular power to haul Zayn into the building. 

They file into the designated room to take seats, Zayn chancing a glance around him. The awkward silence between about fifteen people who don’t know each other is starting to weigh on him before two people slam the door open and stumble in.

“Welcome, GSA prospects!” booms the boy in an identifiable imitation of a sports announcer. “Sorry we’re late.” He’s lugging a cardboard box in his arms while a shorter, brunette girl flits in behind him, clipboard in one hand and packet of biscuits in the other.

“Yeah, sorry,” she says. “Niall ate the cookies we were _supposed_ to have for you, so. We had to make a quick stop.” 

Her British accent jars Zayn and he finds himself straightening up.

“I did not,” the boy protests, heaving the box onto a table at the front of the room and knocking his snapback sideways to scratch at a shock of bottle-blond hair. “You forgot to buy them in the first place.” 

“ _Anyway_!” the girl says brightly, pivoting to face them all, pushing one sleeve of her football ( _soccer_ , Zayn thinks) jersey up. “Hello, and welcome to CSULB GSA, the freshmen edition.” She beams and looks around at them, eyes crinkling. Zayn’s so busy trying to check out the tattoos running all over her arms that he almost misses what she says next. “I’m Lou, your humble president, and this is Niall, my sidekick.”

“Vice president,” the blond—Niall—interjects as he unpacks folders and files from inside the box. 

Lou flaps a hand. “Right, what I said. Anyway, the rest of the leaders won’t arrive on campus until next week, so we’re it for now.” 

“We may not look like much at the moment, but we’ve got a lot of stuff to cover that we’re really excited about for you guys,” Niall says, and for the first time Zayn clocks his Irish accent. Harry is as boggled by the lack of Americans in leadership positions as Zayn is if the way he's fidgeting around is anything to go by. Once everyone’s been introduced—Zayn can’t remember a single other freshman’s name, and actually whited out during the 15 seconds it took to introduce himself—Louis and Niall take turns doing their best to turn a complete info-dump into a comedy routine. By the time they’ve finished talking about council positions and moved onto the calendar of events, Zayn’s cracked a few smiles at their banter and Harry is outright gunning to marry them both.

“We have to be their friends,” he whispers with conviction into Zayn’s ear. Zayn pats his knee as if to say _easy, Styles_. He’s not counting on Harry being serious, but when the meeting is officially concluded and they’re encouraged to help themselves to snacks and mingle, Harry takes off like a rocket.

“Wait!” Zayn hisses after him, alarmed, but the only thing Zayn wants less than being in a room of strangers with Harry is to be in a room of strangers with _out_ Harry, so he huffs and follows along nervously.

By the time he’s caught up, Harry’s already turned the dimples on, “—of course, I realize you guys are probably super busy, but—”

“Psh,” Lou interrupts. “We’re never too busy for our fellow countrymen,” she says, in a decisive manner befitting a president. 

“I’m Irish,” Niall reminds her.

“You’re telling me,” she says. “Let’s take the fresh meat to dip their toes in the Pacific!” 

Which is how Zayn finds himself crammed into the backseat of an old Malibu next to Niall, who has willingly surrendered passenger to Harry. “Hi,” Zayn says as they buckle up, trying not to sound shy. “I’m—”

“Zayn,” Niall finishes, smiling at him. “I didn’t forget.” Zayn smiles, half-taken aback and half-charmed, before Lou clicks on Phantom Planet’s “California” and cranks the volume all the way up, and there’s no way they could make conversation if they tried.

In between the salty smell of the Pacific Ocean and the joint Lou lights wordlessly and offers around once they’ve claimed a patch of beach, Zayn feels a little something settle in his chest that had been clanging around untethered for days. He rolls the sleeves of his t-shirt up, hyper-aware of the breeze gliding over his skin as he closes his eyes and takes his first hit. The cries of the seagulls wheeling overhead sound surreal to him, like he’s not really in this place, so he passes the joint to Harry and then digs his hands into the sand to ground himself, mesmerized as he watches his fingers disappear in the granules. 

“This is mad,” he murmurs, lost beneath the current of Harry and Lou bantering—something Harry does easily with every human being he encounters. 

“Culture shock?” Niall asks from beside him, more observant and quiet than his frequent loud laughter had set Zayn up to expect. Zayn looks at him, caught suddenly by how red Niall’s lips look after smoking, the reflection of the sunset in his Ray Bans. 

“A little,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “It’s _California_.” 

“Cali-forn-ia lo-ove,” Niall sings with a smile, his knee knocking sideways into Zayn’s, and for the first time all day Zayn finds himself smiling for real, ear-to-ear. “Remind me to add that to the playlist for the dance.”

“What dance?” Zayn asks.

“Someone didn’t pay attention during the events portion of the intro,” Lou says. Zayn grimaces.

“Aw, s’okay,” Niall says as he reaches to dig out the phone dinging in his pocket. He unlocks it with a swipe and bites his lower lip as he types out a text deftly, talking all the while. “It’s our welcome back dance, like a way to kick off the school year. We call it Back in Black, ‘cause it’s a black light dance.”

“Which means face paint,” Lou says excitedly. “You guys have to come.”

“Count us in,” Harry says, and Zayn shrugs. Face paint might be cool, but dances aren’t really his scene. Then again, neither was a GSA meeting, neither was CSULB, neither was the United States, and yet here he is. 

“Do you like them?” Harry asks Zayn that night as they pick over sushi together.

“Lou and Niall?” Harry nods. “Yeah, they’re cool, why?” 

“I dunno,” Harry says, pausing to pop a piece of salmon maki in his mouth and chew. “We should befriend them.” 

“Can’t we choose more available friends than the president and vice president of a popular student org?”

“Who says they’re _un_ available?” 

“Niall was, like, glued to his phone. And Lou’s football camp schedule sounds mad!” 

“We’ll see,” Harry mutters, and Zayn knows the bratty look on his face well. It means Harry’s going to have his way. Zayn sighs and then chokes and coughs so hard on a chunk of wasabi that he cries a little. “The universe is giving the skeptic a sign,” Harry says airily as he thumps Zayn’s back.

Zayn explores campus the next day instead of going to the Jewish Student Union meeting with Harry (“You’re not even Jewish,” Zayn says. “They’re advertising free lunch,” Harry explains), learning his route to classes and scoping out the giant library. He gets a text around 4:30: _Zaynie come to the beach :D_

Zayn looks up at the sun and hesitates a moment before replying: _How do I get to the beach?_

When he arrives, he finds that Harry's not alone, but rather, with Lou and Niall and a buzzcut-bearing boy. Lou's got a bottle of rum resting between her thighs and they're all laughing at something Niall's just said.

"Zayn!" Harry greets. “Perfect, sit down, we’re playing some American drinking game.” Zayn sits in between him and the other guy, who politely introduces himself as Liam and even shakes Zayn’s hand.

In the span of twenty minutes Zayn finds out that Lou once cheated on a final exam, Niall has had public sex, none of them have ever been arrested or participated in threesomes, and all of them have at one point had a crush on a teacher. It’s all very enlightening, except Zayn’s spending a lot of time watching the way Niall’s throat works when he takes shots.

Eventually the game dissolves and Zayn tells them about Bradford, his sisters, his love of comic books as they each share about themselves. He keeps making eye contact with Niall as he talks and it’s making his skin hot. He can feel Niall’s attention on him as the flow of conversation cedes to Lou and Zayn takes another shot just because—because Niall’s cheeks are so damn pink, and whatever. Eventually Niall’s phone buzzes and he spends the next fifteen minutes on it, tongue poking out as he concentrates. 

“Excuse his rudeness.” Lou rolls her eyes. “Party-planning extraordinaire over here.” 

Niall arches an eyebrow but doesn’t look at her. “Sorry, did you want to do some work over there, Ms. President?” 

Lou scowls. “Not really.”

“That’s what I thought.” 

 

This is how Zayn ends up on the planning committee:

“Please, Zayn,” Niall begs, blue eyes teardropped like those on the Precious Moments statues. “Harry told me you were in!” 

Zayn rubs his eyes sleepily from where he’s leaning at a dramatic angle against his dorm doorway, which Niall is standing just outside of with Lou’s car keys in hand. “It’s not m’fault Harold volunteered me,” he grumbles. He’s only just woken up, hasn’t even showered, and a trip to Party City sounds less than agreeable at this hour. Harry is, of course, nowhere to be found.

“Okay, if you come with me now before Lou gets out of foot—soccer camp, I’ll help you figure out how to kill him,” Niall smiles, and it’s so sweet, and how is Zayn supposed to resist that?

He can’t. He doesn’t _want_ to. “Meet you at the car,” he says, and Niall cheers victoriously.

They spend the morning picking out balloons and other decorations, dropping by a campus office to submit paperwork for the event and other trivialities. In between their stops, Niall drives them to a little greasy joint called Tacos Chapala for, “the best tacos in Long Beach, I swear.” They make their way through an order of chips and salsa before Zayn gorges himself on chicken tacos, entirely too thrilled whenever he makes Niall laugh with an anecdote of home.

After that he lets himself be coerced into going to pick Lou up from camp. “Hola señorita,” Niall calls out the window as they pull up to the curb where she’s waiting with Liam. “Hey, Leemur.”

“Where’s hair ball?” Lou asks.

“Hiking, I think,” Zayn says, shading his eyes against the sun. 

“Disgusting,” she dismisses, standing up from the curb and hitching her bag up her shoulder. “You gonna let me drive my own car, Ni?”

“Nah,” Niall says. Surprisingly, Lou doesn’t protest, just opens the trunk to toss their bags in and crawls into the back seat with Liam. The smell of their sweat instantly fills the small space. “Jesus, you lot are rank,” Niall laughs, rolling all four windows all the way down. 

“Sorry,” Liam apologizes bashfully and Niall shakes his head.

“How was shopping?” Lou breezes on, unscrewing her water bottle for a heaving glug. 

“Great,” Niall says. “Balloon order is in, deposit on the DJ is paid, scheduled the black light delivery. I’d go on, but I know you’re already bored.”

“Planning the Back in Black, eh? I’m coming this year, I swear,” says Liam.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lou says. “Speaking of which—” she slides forward in her seat and pokes the back of Niall’s neck. “You got a date yet?”

“Erm,” Niall says, and when Zayn looks over his face is red. “No?”

“Didn’t know casual dances needed dates,” Liam says.

“They don’t,” Niall says. “Lou’s just trying to set me up. It’s her favorite past time.” Zayn looks out the window and starts counting palm trees.

“Seriously!” Lou says. “If you decide to end your stag status I have, like, three people trying to get your number off me.” 

“I’m good,” Niall says with a tone of finality as he switches lanes. “If I want a date, I think I can handle it.”

Zayn faceplants on his mattress later. Harry comes bustling in from the showers, towel perilously low on his hips and sunburned to hell and back. Zayn just looks at him and sighs. 

“Nice to see you too,” Harry drawls. “Why the long face?”

“I think I like Niall,” Zayn says. “And he’s popular, and busy, and if he wants a date, then he can handle it.” 

“Sorry, I didn’t, like, really follow you, there,” Harry says as he ties his hair up in an itty bitty pony tail. “You like Niall?” Zayn nods somberly. “What’s the problem?”

“Lou says she’s got, like, a million people to set him up with.” 

“I _knew_ she was a fellow matchmaker! I got a vibe,” Harry says excitedly. 

“Focus, please,” Zayn groans. 

Harry sobers a little, sitting down across from him. “Okay, look, you just need a plan.”

 

This is how Zayn asks Niall to the dance:

All five of them are at a campus bonfire, a welcome back gesture to celebrate the end of their first week of classes. They’re supposed to be doing something with chocolate and marshmallows, but Zayn’s stomach is too knotted with nerves to eat anything. 

He’s been trying to ask Niall to his own damn dance for the better part of the week, drafting endless text messages and opening his mouth over and over when they’re together, only to say something inane like, “Tell me about Ireland.” 

Which has only made it worse, because the longer Niall talks about anything, the further gone for him Zayn gets. Hearing Niall talk about his homeland, or his passion for his major, or why the grass is fucking green is doing Zayn’s head in. His fingers curl into fists to keep himself from kissing that stupid brogue right out of Niall’s mouth. 

But here under the starry night sky, bathed in the glow of the enormous bonfire and sweating a little, surrounded by hundreds of other students, the pressure is building up in him. They’re sitting on a giant log by the fire and Liam is expertly roasting Harry a marshmallow and everyone’s chattering all around them. He can do it now. Just nudge Niall and ask him quietly. And if it goes badly, he can peace out immediately. Zayn takes a deep breath, then another, squares his shoulders and—

“Hey, Zayn?” Niall murmurs from beside him. Zayn whips his head around, startled. 

“Yeah?”

Niall bites his lip for a moment, then looks up and asks, “Would you maybe, like. Wanna go to the dance with me? Like, as. Y’know. Together? A date?” 

“No!” Zayn exclaims. “Take it back, Niall!”

Niall’s face falls. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry—” and Zayn reaches over to clap a hand over his mouth.

“Sorry, no, I mean, yes, _yes_ I want to go with you,” Zayn says, exasperated. “I just was about to ask you, I’ve been trying to ask you all week.” He drops his hand from Niall’s smiling lips and laughs disbelievingly. 

“D’you want me to take it back?” Niall asks, blue eyes in happy crescents as he smiles harder than Zayn’s seen him done since they met. Zayn nods, feeling like he’s fifteen again. “Okay, I take it back.”

“All right,” Zayn says. “Now,” he reaches down to tentatively intertwine their fingers. “Niall Horan, will you go the dance with me?”

“Yes,” Niall laughs, louder than the crackling of the bonfire, loud enough to attract attention, but Zayn doesn’t care who’s looking when he leans in and kisses him. 

“Thank god,” he mutters against Niall’s mouth, and Niall shushes him as he hauls him in closer. Zayn’s not generally prone to high speed, but when Niall’s hand wraps around the back of his neck, he goes for it, holding Niall’s chin gently in one hand and nudging his lips open, swiping his tongue in against the heat of Niall’s pliant mouth. He tastes like the whiskey from his flask and burnt marshmallow and chocolate and—

“Get a room!” Lou says, chucking an empty paper cup at them, and they break apart, laughing. 

“Lou!” Harry cries. “Don’t you see love is at work!” 

“Love could also get to work in their own room!” 

Niall leans his forehead against Zayn’s, flushed and grinning. “Welcome to America.”


End file.
